Telecommunication companies that are installing fiber to the premises (FTTP) are also installing battery backup units (BBU) which are needed to power the FTTP network during a power failure for a finite period of time. Currently, the industry uses set battery chemistries—a single kind of battery—and that can be too limiting. Thus, it is desirable to not be constrained to only one type of battery, such as a sealed lead acid battery, which may cause a customer to complain for environmental or safety reasons.
Moreover, when installing FTTP in homes, sometimes batteries are taken, without authorization, out of the optical network terminal (ONT) units (e.g., by customers for their own unrelated uses). In that adverse environment, it would be helpful to install non-rechargeable alkaline batteries where they have no further use after they are discharged. By contrast, where other battery chemistries are preferred, it might be more useful to use lithium ion batteries or nickel metal hydride batteries which are rechargeable and have better characteristics, generally speaking, than the alkaline batteries.
Currently, there is no easy manner by which these batteries can be inter-changed, because the battery chargers that are needed to charge the various rechargeable batteries are all different from each other to accommodate the chemistries of the rechargeable batteries which also are all different from each other. This can result in an inconvenient, costly and inefficient retrofitting procedure to remove the old battery charger associated with the old battery and to install a new battery charger associated with the new battery.
Therefore, there is a need for systems and methods by which these kinds of rechargeable batteries can be changed to other batteries responsive to need, and thereafter be recharged as may be needed during power failures, without making any other changes.